Nine Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Part 2)

Discerning of spirits:
This is having the ability to tell whether something is from God or not.
You might hear about another church that had gold dust appearing on people out of thin air,
and you get this strong feeling that such a manifestation is not from God, but it's actually demonic.
This gift is also a bit vague,
because what one church accepts as godly, another church dismisses.
Different kinds of tongues:
This gift was described in books that I read
as having the ability to switch between one Holy Spirit tongue, and another.
Having two or more languages that they can speak in tongues.
Paul says speaking in tongues edifies the Spirit,
so having two of these prayer languages can only make you closer to God.
Interpretation of tongues:
This was fairly common in my church.
People will be praying near the end of a service,
and then all of a sudden someone in the congregation will start praying loudly in tongues,
and then everybody else will go silent.
[person speaking in tongues]
Once the person speaking in tongues stops,
there will be a moment of silence while the congregation waits on the Holy Spirit
to see who God will use to bring the interpretation.
"Humble yourself before me, and I will lead and guide you.
Turn not... [indistinct words]
Reach out and touch me.
For I am with thee."
A lot of the time, the interpreter is not the same person that initially spoke in tongues.
The interpreter will start speaking loudly and will speak as though he were God:
"Let Me have your heart, I will transform it.
Then I will transform the world, saith the Lord of Hosts"
[person speaking in tongues]
When someone speaks in tongues, they can speak a maximum of about 15-20 unique syllables.
So it's just the same sounds over and over again.
Pentecostals recognise that the interpretation is not strictly an interpretation of what was said in tongues,
but is rather a supernatural translation.
Something to note about these supernatural gifts is that most are a learned behaviour.
Unless a gift is openly preached about or demonstrated in the church,
it likely will never happen....because people haven't been taught how to do it.
If these gifts are supernatural,
shouldn't they occur whether a believer knows how to perform them or not?
You can step into a pentecostal church that never demonstrates tongues and interpretation;
or you can step into another pentecostal church that has all sorts of Holy Ghost antics.
The only difference is church leadership.
"Out!"
In my own church we had a few people 'slain in the Spirit' at times,
then our pastors decided that if it was really from God then they won't need anyone to catch them.
After all, God wouldn't allow them to get hurt.
So they purposely asked that no catchers come up on stage.
Strangely enough, people stopped falling over.
Funny that.
More evidence of learned behaviour is that whenever these gifts are manifested,
they always seem to occur during the same parts of the service,
like during the altar call.
In my church, sometimes I would wonder why prophecies and interpretations
never happened in the middle of the offering or the middle of the song service.
Another thing I noticed was that those giving interpretations sound a lot like each other.
They all used similar language to other interpreters in the church,
and they all used a similar tone of voice.
Looking back, gifts like the Word of Knowledge and Prophecy are not much different than psychic readings.
The information is generally vague and based on probabilities,
such as, "someone around you has been affected by cancer."
or, "you felt God's calling on your life when you were younger."
It is also tainted with what the preacher knows or can deduce about the person already.
Here's a word of knowledge in action:
"Be careful who you allow to influence you.
The Holy Spirit told me there are some influences...
young women.
You need to silence them. You need to cut them off."
"This is not me remembering, this is God. You're around 12 years old.
and there was this passionate searching for God that you had in your heart.
The Lord asked me, "Do you remember that?"
That's bringing something back in you, isn't it?
God says He wants that back
and He misses that.
I cannot remember one prophecy or word from God that I've heard that could not be attributed to natural factors,
such as vague information, probabilities, powers of observation,
or the fact that the preacher is known to have prior knowledge of that person's history.
While there are certainly some who intentionally fake these gifts, I believe most of those whom I saw personally
genuinely believed that God was using them and giving them supernatural information.
When you've been indoctrinated for years that God can speak to you
and that you just need to listen for His voice,
then it opens you up to believing that *any* thought you have is from God,
as long as it aligns with your doctrine.
Put that in the context of belief in spiritual gifts,
and it becomes to easy to believe God is manifesting these gifts through you.
Adding fuel to the fire is an emotionally-charged church atmosphere,
and a congregation of people dying to hear God speak to them.
Like those who believe in psychics,
these church members are all too willing to believe the preacher has a Word from God just for them,
no matter how ambiguous or how humanly-influenced that word might be.
The sad thing is that these prophecies and words from God virtually never make a difference to the church.
Many preachers and revival services come and go over the years.
Many words are given out, and their impact on an individual is emotional yet fleeting.
There are no earth-shattering revelations,
nor do these words seem to change a person's life dramatically.
God never seems to give any practical direction or instruction,
aside from have faith, stop sinning, and trust in Me.
God always manages to avoid tangible, concrete proof that He's foretold future events.
It seems these gifts are not divine, but are a product of church culture that has been refined over the years.
They are learned behaviours, copied from church to church,
and it is not God, but church leadership that determines whether the gifts are active or not in the congregation.
Conveniently, some charismatic churches will say that God won't move where He's not wanted,
so if other churches won't encourage spiritual gifts,
then God won't perform them.
Is God a child throwing a tantrum?
Would He even stop someone from being healed
in order to punish that church for not promoting His spiritual gifts?
As is often the case, Christianity finds ways to blame itself for God's absence.
For christians that do not believe signs and miracles are for today,
I can see why they do their best to defend such a position.
They admit that there's simply no evidence of God in these spiritual gifts.
I agree.
Thanks for watching.